Bishops: Easter is "double wake-up call for all of us"

In their sermons on Easter Sunday, Austrian bishops refer to the transformative power of the Easter faith

Feldkirch/Graz/Linz/Eisenstadt (KAP) – The message of the resurrection of Jesus, which Christians celebrate at Easter, is a “double wake-up call for all of us” – a wake-up call to hope and confidence for our own path in life and a wake-up call to a new togetherness, to appreciation and solidarity with one another. The Austrian bishops pointed this out in their sermons on Easter Sunday. “This Easter wake-up call not only affects us personally, but also our togetherness and living together. Anyone who is awakened must – sooner or later – get up. Resurrection also has something to do with getting up, with rebellion. Easter is a rebellion for life and at the same time a protest against suffering and death,” stressed Bishop Benno Elbs of Feldkirch in his sermon in Feldkirch Cathedral.

According to Bishop Ägidius Zsifkovics, the Easter faith represents a wake-up call for change in personal life as well as in the church and in society. emphasized the Bishop of Eisenstadt on Sunday morning in Eisenstadt Cathedral. “The pandemic, the Ukraine war and other things surprised us, wounded us, divided us, right now our society needs cohesion, solidarity.” Zsifkovics warned that in the church it was also important to resolve conflicts of direction in the spirit of synodality.

The word “Easter wake-up call” was also mentioned in the sermon by Bishop Manfred Scheuer of Linz at the traditional Easter Sunday service in Linz Cathedral. People are called to show more solidarity and pay attention to the sensitivities of others. “Young people in particular need courage and zest for life, self-knowledge, self-respect and self-confidence.” An Easter wake-up call here means standing by your neighbor as a friend. Scheuer explained that a normal visit or even a letter could also be seen as such an Easter sign of appreciation. In this respect, resurrection often occurs covertly “in the middle of everyday life, when anonymous forms of death are overcome”.

A whole kaleidoscope of crisis phenomena that burden people today was presented by Bishop Wilhelm Krautwasch from Graz. “War and terror and the associated human tragedies – also of those fleeing – paralyze many in the prospect of hope. (…) Poverty, inflation and the associated questions make many freeze as if in death or sink into accusation. (.. .) Crises on the labor market (…) and, and, and – All of this leaves many people around the world wondering. Is there light at the end of the supposed tunnel?” There is also a lot of disruption within the church, resignations, conflicts over direction. In view of these multiple crises, resurrection means above all “putting what we have in common ahead of what divides us” and getting actively involved “so that togetherness is possible,” said Bishop Krautwaschl.

Archbishop Franz Lackner and Cardinal Christoph Schönborn emphasized the peace mission associated with the Easter faith in their sermons on Easter Sunday. “As resurrection Christians, we have the mandate to be there in the world, to be witnesses and not to put up with it when a terrible war of aggression is underway a few hundred kilometers from us,” said Archbishop Lackner at the service in Salzburg Cathedral. Just as the women endured at the cross of Jesus, so it is the task of the Christians to “endure on today’s hills of need – to be there asking and helping and to make peace”. This is “our belief, our hope, our mission,” says Lackner.

In his sermon in Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Cardinal Schönborn referred to the life-changing core of the message of the resurrection. Paul can only say so emphatically, “Unless Christ is raised, your faith is meaningless” (1 Cor 15:13-14) because he has experienced precisely this: the transforming power of the experience of the risen one. This experience fundamentally turned the lives and behavior of the apostles upside down: “They were depressed, afraid – and now they are bold, go out and dare to tell about what they experienced.”

((forts. mgl.)) HKL
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